by Anne Bernays
BETH SOUNDED URGENT and mysterious when she called to ask if she could come over to the house on Whitman Street; she had something she had to tell me. I reminded her that this was her house too. “You have a key. What’s up?” She said, “I’d rather wait ’til I see you in person.” She had piqued my curiosity, adding a couple of drops of anxiety. I’ve learned not to count on news being good.
There are dozens of me, waiting in line in the drafty building, shifting from one foot to the other, trying to read the newspaper I’ve brought with me without bothering the Dannie in back or in front of me. Sometimes I think I know what I’m waiting for; other times I’m baffled. When I finally reach the window, what am I going to find? Will I be told that I haven’t filled out the proper forms? Will I be issued a visa for Italy or, God forbid, Afghanistan? Will I be asked to hand over a two-hundred-dollar fine for infraction of some obscure rule? Who’s on the other side of the window? Waiting patiently, I am wife, mother, artist (when I allow myself this name), neighbor, home owner, food shopper, bed maker, laundress, cook, weeder, tire changer, etc., etc. But when I sense something amiss in the life of one of my children, mother empathically elbows her way to the front of the line. However muted, alarms have gone off.
So I put David Lipsett and the ecstasy I dreamed of sharing with him on hold.
“I’ve taken a job in New Hampshire,” Beth said almost as soon as she came in through the front door.
“What kind of job?”
“It’s at a sort of halfway house for kids who’ve been in trouble?” I wondered whether she meant halfway in or halfway out. “It’s to keep them from getting worse. They’ve been on drugs, they’ve had minor scrapes with the law. Some of them are what’s called ‘incorrigible’?”
“You don’t have any experience in that kind of work,” I said, immediately regretting it.
“They’re very shorthanded,” she said, narrowing her eyes in a way I recognized as reflective of hurt. “They’ll take almost anybody.”
“Are you going to get paid for this?”
“Not quite a living wage,” she said. “But housing’s thrown in. So that makes up for the chintzy salary.” She described the housing: a co-op arrangement, with private rooms for everyone and a common kitchen and living room. It sounded to me a bit like the halfway house the bad kids were in. It occurred to me that this might be some kind of penance she was doing, but for what? What did she think she had done that required what involved a personal sacrifice?
“Can I ask you a question?”
“You mean, am I hungry? The answer is yes.”
“I’ll make us something,” I said, glad to be occupied in a physical task. “Sorry, I should have asked earlier. It’s past lunchtime, isn’t it? But that’s not what I was going to ask. I was going to ask you why you’re taking this job? It’s not exactly your line of work.”
“You think I’m going off the tracks, don’t you? And it probably has something to do with Andy. But it isn’t that. It’s just that at the magazine I was doing such shitty work. Sometimes I felt like a slut or something. I suppose this job at Bellmont Hill—that’s what the place is called—will be good for me. And maybe for the kids. I like children.”
Well, I’d never heard her say this before. It might even be true. But I was skeptical of her plan. I wanted to remind her that if she wanted my approval she didn’t need it and probably shouldn’t be asking for it. She was thirty years old.
“You’re not asking for my approval, are you?”
“Of course not. I just wanted to let you know what I’m going to do.”
“You’re not eating your salad,” I said.
“I guess I’m not very hungry.”
I decided to tell her about New York, minus the heart of the story. Beth seemed minimally interested and then told me she hoped that one day she and I could do a book together. It would be basically a picture book, with photographs of trophy houses on the Outer Cape. “You’d take the pictures,” she said. “I’d do the text.”
I turned the idea on its head: “How about a book of genuine Cape houses? Not even the kind I have. But like the Wirths’, on Slough Pond, and the Perrys’, on Lieutenant Island?” The idea had taken hold. “When do you want to start?” I asked. “Maybe you weren’t listening to me, Mom. I’m taking a new job. I can’t quit before I even show up for work.” I could see she had misinterpreted me; I could also see that her response was perfectly reasonable. I’d put my foot in it again. Why does Beth bring out the worst in me?
As she was getting ready to leave, Beth asked, in the most casual, offhand manner, if her father and I were okay. “Why do you ask?” She shrugged and said, “Just a feeling. No big deal. It’s not any of my business, really,” she said. She frowned. “I forgot to tell you,” she said. Andy had sent her an e-mail. He was working for an outfit that put on events for charities and other organizations that wanted to call attention to themselves. “Sounds like a perfect fit,” I said.
I told Tom I was thinking of going to Truro the following weekend.
“Oh? Sorry I won’t be able to come with you.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “Do you mind if I ask why?”
“You know that committee I’m on, the one that interviews candidates for that rare open slot in the department? We agreed to meet this guy on Saturday morning. It was the only day the man could make it—he looks awfully good on paper.”
I nodded. “You don’t mind?”
“I do mind. I could use a day or two of R & R.”
My response, drawn out of a habit of thirty years, was automatic. I went over to him and put a hand on his arm. Once, this juncture had produced sparks. I was surprised now that it produced nothing at all, as if his arm belonged to a corpse—or was it my hand that had no life left in it? I wanted so badly to feel something that, without meaning to, I half-choked on the word “Tom!” “What’s the matter, Dannie?” he said. “Did I do something?” I told him of course not. Which one of the two takes the blame for letting the tape run out and failing to insert another?
The Truro house smelled lovely, like an ancient pine pillow along with something a little bit off, like the shells of tiny creatures. I opened a window and a cold bay breeze filled the rooms, freshening the air inside. I looked out the window, trying to get the two parts of myself to make up and form one whole. I was sure I could do this here and I did feel a little better. I phoned Raymie. Mitch answered. After identifying myself, I said I’d like to speak to Raymie. I could hear him call “honey”—that must be Raymie. “Hi, honey,” I said. She asked what I was doing in Truro. Her voice sounded different—a little strained.
I asked her if she’d like to come to my house for lunch the next day. “Why don’t you come over here?” she said. “I’ve got this huge refrigerator full of goodies. Mitch won’t mind. He said he’d like to see you.”
We went back and forth until finally I agreed.
The next morning I worked hard on a new project and actually produced one page out of five attempts that didn’t make me want to throw up. Work does not grow easier. When I finally looked at the clock, I saw that it was time to quit.
Should I change my grungy Truro clothes, the old jeans and the stained sweatshirt threadbare at the neck? I decided I would, then changed my mind. I said goodbye to Marshall (assuring him I’d take him for a walk later), left the house and walked down the beach and then up the stairs to the Brenner house. I took a deep breath: “Hello?”
Raymie opened the sliding door and came out to meet me. She hugged me. “I’m so glad to see you, Dannie. God, I’ve missed you. Come on in.” I smelled musky perfume on her neck. As soon as she stepped back, I realized that she had transformed herself into a Ralph Lauren girl—crisp, clean, yet outdoorsy in perfectly creased and spotless designer chinos, a heavy coral pink turtleneck sweater with flecks of silver in it and a pair of unscuffed Docksiders over crew socks. On her wrist was a gold chain bracelet with a charm hanging off it that probably read TO HIS HON
EY FROM HER MITCH. Her hair was brushed straight and looked to me as if it had spent some time in a beauty parlor, getting spitted and polished. Clothes remake the woman.
I nearly said, “Raymie, is that you?” I suppose she could have gone another way: jeans that hugged her butt, high heels, a tight shirt (wasn’t that how she had described Ruthie at the P’Town restaurant?). But Mitch had halfway figured out that Truro was not Miami and had opted for L.L.Bean, Eddie Bauer and the more or less WASPy style. Halfway because, as I noted earlier, every item of clothing was spanking new or clean or free of anything that makes a thing look worn. The classiest gent I know in Truro—someone with a true Cape Cod heart in his chest and a laid-back style that has nothing to do with the hard work it takes to write plays—seems, to a stranger, like a man who spends his mornings rummaging through Dumpsters.
“Mitch is on the phone—as usual,” she said. “Can I get you something to drink?”
I could hear Mitch talking in a room off the living room, which had been supplied with furniture not really hideous but far too large. The leather couch, for instance, could have held six adults side by side, the armchair facing it, two. Substantial, they were built to last a thousand years. Raymie invited me to come into the kitchen while she finished working on our meal. “Mitch wanted us to have lobsters,” she said. “So that’s what we’re having.”
It was one of those times when things are over the top but you’re glad anyway. Mitch’s voice grew louder, although I still couldn’t hear what he was saying. A minute later, he appeared in the kitchen, a white sweater draped across his shoulders, its sleeves tied together over his breastbone. His eyebrows seemed bushier than ever. Leaning on an ebony cane with a silver handle, he said hello to me. I thought I saw a smirk flash quickly across his features. I stuck out my hand, which he shook.
“Got everything straightened out?” Raymie asked.
“Sonofabitch is still holding out on me,” he said. Then, to me. “We don’t want to talk business here, do we? How are those beasties coming along, honey?”
“Another few minutes, Mitch,” Raymie said. I tried to read the extent of her affection for him but was unable to pierce her chirpiness. I’ve probably spent far too much time trying to decide whether or not human leopards can change their spots. Some people seem to be able to do it. These are the folks who start out as scamps and end up as pious purveyors of virtue, like Charles Colson, the man who lied for Richard Nixon, preaching the Gospel from jail. And other species, like the man who started out a rabbi and ended up as a NASCAR driver. Are these genuine changes, or are they simply the flip side of an overfocused personality? While I dealt with my lobster—they had the right little forks and picks to pry out the claw meat—I tried to get a read on Raymie and found her nothing but insistently and charmingly attentive to Mitchell Brenner. She did all the serving and clearing—just as she had in her B & B. Except now it was accompanied by the sort of affectionate gesture or tone of voice you save for someone near and dear to you. I couldn’t imagine that she was in love with him, failing, perhaps, to empathize and only judging from my own heart. I could no more love this man than I could Dick Cheney, our vice president, a man with money motives so obvious they stuck out like the needles on the back of a porcupine. What was change anyway? Had B been lurking inside A all those years and finally got out? Or had B killed A and snatched his body? I looked at Raymie, listened to her speak, watched as she ever so lightly brushed Mitch’s cheek with her hand, and I could not, for the life of me, understand what she was really up to.
The meal was pleasant enough. Mitch didn’t do anything obnoxious. It was just his attitude—arrogant, dismissive, humorless—that bothered me, along with his tying almost any subject one of us brought up to money. Real estate, of course, but swimming? At one point, as Raymie and I were comparing bodies of water in which to swim—bay, ocean, pond—he educated us on the economics of what he called the “swimsuit industry” and how it relies chiefly on winter sales because rich women go south when it’s cold and don’t mind paying a hundred bucks or more for a tiny piece of spandex or whatever it was swimsuits were made out of, and on and on, Raymie composing her features into tolerant enjoyment: “Doesn’t the dear man know a lot about a lot of things?” I couldn’t wait to get away, my distress fed both by Raymie’s new persona and Mitch’s sensibility.
And then he surprised me once again, by looking out over the bay and sighing with obvious pleasure. And it wasn’t just the lobsters, and the raspberries Raymie served for dessert, it was the waterscape below and stretching to the horizon. It was a calm day and the seabirds rose and fell, afloat on light currents of air. How could a man like Mitch like what I like? It almost made me angry.
“I ought to be getting back,” I said.
“Oh, stay for a while,” Raymie said. I noticed that Mitch didn’t echo the invitation. “Well, maybe I’ll stay a few minutes.”
“You gals do your thing,” Mitch said, “I’ve got a couple of calls to make.” He disappeared into the room where he’d been on the phone earlier, leaving Raymie and me with a shitload of things unsaid. But how can you ask your bosom friend what she’s doing with a man like Mitch? As for Raymie, she no doubt felt my disapproval, the way you always know when someone close to you hates what you’re doing but refuses to say so.
“Come and see my garden,” she said. “It’s out in back.” We slipped out through a slider to the land side of the house. It wasn’t warm enough for any flowers, so, except for evergreens and heather, you could only see the beds she had dug. Raymie told me which flowers were going to come up where. Off to one side was a plot where, she said, she was going to plant vegetables: squash, eggplant, tomatoes, spinach. “We brought in two tons of topsoil,” she said. “It’s so nice not having to worry about where every penny for anything you want is going to come from.”
“Anything new on Halliday?” I asked.
“Apparently, they’re still on his trail. At least they claim they are. How is one to know? How can someone like that disappear? You know what I think? All this stuff about terrorists in our midst? People like Halliday are small potatoes compared to some guy planning to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge. They’re just too busy looking for diaperheads to bother with the likes of our whack job.”
“Sounds right,” I said. I was so close to telling her about David Lipsett that I could feel the words crowding my mouth, pushing against my lips. In the old days, before Mitch screwed around with her head, she would have got an earful: “I met this man and it’s driving me crazy. I can’t stop thinking about him. He seems to like me, but I’m not sure whether with him it’s just sex or something else as well. He’s in New York, which of course makes it easier for me on the one hand and harder on the other. Easier because I can’t flop into his lap whenever I feel like it, but harder because I can’t see him and his adorable face. What do you think I ought to do?”
And the old Raymie would answer, “And what about Tom? Are you ready to dump your husband of thirty years for a man you hardly know?”
Mitch appeared at that moment, holding a sheet of paper. “Raymie,” he said, “that son of a bitch Halliday, or whatever his name is, just sent me this.” He thrust the sheet of paper at Raymie, who took it, squinted at it and told Mitch that she’d left her reading glasses inside. “Here, I’ll read it to you,” Mitch said, grabbing back the piece of paper. “It says here on this e-mail, ‘I’ll be back to finish the job.’ It’s signed ‘cleanser666.’” He stopped there, letting it sink in. “That should be easy enough to trace,” I said. Mitch looked at me as if he had just found out I was retarded. “No, Dannie,” he said. “You can use any number of sender names. Then you just go to the local library, sit down at the terminal and grind out your message.” Raymie said, “This really sucks. How does he get away with it?”
“Who’s to stop him?” Mitch said.
“I’m going to call Pete Savage,” Raymie said.
“What’s a Provincetown cop going to do for you that
Jerry Braccio can’t?” I assumed that Mr. Braccio was the P.I. Mitch had hired. It seemed to me that neither he nor Savage had done that much to find the man, but nobody asked me for my opinion so I kept my mouth shut.
Raymie went into the house to phone Savage. Mitch looked at the e-mail once again, then folded it neatly and stuck it in the back pocket of his shorts. “It takes all kinds,” he said, more to himself than to me. I thought this was a healthy reaction, considering, and I told him so. “What are you going to do?” he said. “Build a bunker and spend the rest of your life in there? Hire armed guards? That’s not my idea of a life.”
I have to admit, I admired him for this little declaration. I asked him to say goodbye to Raymie for me and thanked him again for lunch.
“No problem,” he said.
I walked double-time back to my house, hoping to work off some of the large meal. I was thinking about Raymie and realizing, with a pang, that she had gone over to the other side, the side that has their garbage collected rather than hauling it to the dump, the side that has all their forks and knives from the same set, the side that never eats at Moby Dick’s on Route 6. For my money, Moby’s serves up the best fish on the Outer Cape, but if you don’t get there for lunch at eleven forty-five, you better be prepared to cool your heels for at least fifteen minutes. It was not so much about how much money you had as about how what you did with it looked to other people. Raymie and Mitch were together now, joined in a way that erased what had been basic differences. So that, really, they were more like one than two. Could I put up with it?
I was watching the news at six when I learned that someone had splashed blood—they hadn’t determined what kind of blood, human or otherwise—against the front door of a house in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, a fancy suburb of Detroit, and also left an anti-Semitic message. The sheriff of Wayne County came on, standing in front of what was clearly a McMonster, pillared, gabled, towered, with twin urns crowded with what looked like fake flowers, one on each side of the front door, and a curved window two stories high smack in the middle. The sheriff shifted uncomfortably in the eye of the camera, his glasses catching light and sending it back at us. “This is a first for us here in this community,” he said. “We’re not ruling out calling it a hate crime.” We were invited to tune in to a late-night investigative report focusing on ecoterrorism and anti-Semitism. It sounded as if they couldn’t make up their minds whether it had to do with the size of the house or the ethnicity of its owners. Had Halliday fired another round in his campaign to save the world from Jewish excess?
